Final details

What is left to be done?
Well start laying the final extension of the network ... theyre starting to put the raised floor down, were still building out our MDFs and IDFs, racking equipment, so well be connecting the dots over the next couple of days. The next big thing after that is the migration of a large number of employees and staff members from this office down to the Fleet Center and the back of house offices that were building there.

Were also bringing some remote offices up, our credentials office, our housing office, headquarters, and tying them all together though point-to-point circuits to the Fleet Center. Those are some of the things that need to be done, and then just the deploying of 500 computers to be used there, at the headquarters hotels, the train tracks. I mean, we had people in showers last time.

When is this going to be switched on?
Were actually on now. Weve connected our credentials office back to here, were connected down to the Fleet Center, with our point-to-point DS3 now. The OC-3 will be up, if not today then in the next day or two. So that will be switched on and well start working.
Were moving our first offices in there Saturday morning, so were up, for all intents and purposes, and again, from the beginning, weve known were going to have to migrate, weve known were going to have to tie it all together, so weve made it all as seamless as possible. Its never seamless, but weve tried.
What happens to all the equipment once the convention is over?
The IBM equipment is scheduled to be donated to the Boston Public School System. The Cisco equipment similarly weve donated to the Boston Public School System, and integrated with digital divide programs, technology programs, technology at home program, so were going to go to the city and school system.
The HP equipment will similarly go to the city. HP has three major consumers of their equipment in the city: the police department, the mayors office and the school district, and we work with all the local reps on these projects; the person who helps with all this is our point of contact with Hewlett-Packard. Everybodys kind of on the same page, and well be meeting with the schools to see if theres anything else that they need.
What weve ordered and what weve used for our eventall the equipment that Ive ordered Ive tried to keep in mind what the school district could use and what they need, if it could be repurposed. We always knew that it would remain here in the Boston community and it would be used by the schools.
What is the total value of all the equipment?
I think were right around $7 million. But we are actually in the process of our final accounting, because we also have to take into account the services and support that theyve provided. The IBM equipment is a $2 million grant.
How much extra work did you have to do to the Fleet Center? How ready were they for this event?
There were actually two areas that we had to build: the video infrastructure and the network itself. They have a very good network that extends into their rooms, but what we did is we had to extend it into the floor, extend it to the stage that has 40 or 50 workstations.
We have areas around the perimeter, so the biggest challenge was extending and going beyond the normal infrastructure. But as far as what we had to lay invery, very minimal. I think were laying some vertical risers because were laying some fiber. And then back in the locker rooms, in some of the back offices, were trying to take advantage of what they have.
Whos in the locker rooms?
One locker room is podium operations, I think the Bruins locker room, and Im not sure what the Celtics is being used for.
But all the space is being used?
All the space is being used, and were building new space were walling off. The press filing center, were building a wall. Whats called the boiler room, for the campaign, were building a wall14-foot wallsand enclose them. Were turning a janitors closet into our help desk area. I wasnt joking, last time we had people in the shower, with banquet tables and ran wires into it. We really use every inch.
We built a very large corporation$60 million dollar plus operationin a matter of months, in an enclosed space. Thats our challenge, and here in technology we try and support that from an enterprise perspective.
Next page: DNC vs. RNC.